AUBURN HILLS – The Detroit
Pistons' bench has produced some of their most intriguing moments
this season, but never quite like Sunday, when they nearly toppled
the NBA's best team, until undone by a Chicago Bulls superstar's
production – and, perhaps, protection.

Derrick Rose, last year's Most
Valuable Player, took advantage of some Rodney Stuckey missed free
throws to hit an overtime-forcing 3-pointer late in regulation of a
100-94 Bulls win at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

Those free throws, and Rose's
dagger from just right of the top of the key, will be remembered
most.

Yet, it was a questionable
flagrant-one foul against little-used Charlie Villanueva, on the day
he played his most meaningful minutes and scored his most points of
the season, that provided the Bulls with the impetus for victory.

Villanueva swiped down at the ball
as Rose drove in transition and was whistled with 4:31 remaining. He
nicked Rose's nose, drawing a trickle of blood, but there didn't
appear to be any malevolent intent.

“I was definitely going for the
ball,” Villanueva said. “Had no intentions of trying to hit him
hard or anything. I split him open on his nose or whatnot, but I
just tried to go for the ball and they gave me a flagrant foul.”

Rose had words for Villanueva, who
responded and was whistled for a technical foul.

Three different players ended up
making 4 of 5 free throws during the break and a follow-up possession
in which the Bulls kept the ball.

The result was a four-point
possession for a 77-76 Bulls lead – their only lead of the fourth
quarter – and a disrupted flow which Detroit had discovered late in
the third quarter.

“That was a big turning point to
the game,” Stuckey said. “But it happens. We just had to move
on.”

Villanueva said Rose instigated
their post-foul conversation, “and I get called for a technical.”

“It wasn't like I was trying to
hit him on purpose, to try to play dirty, nothing like that,”
Villanueva said. “I went for the ball and they called a flagrant
foul.”

Villanueva scored 13 points as
part of Pistons coach Lawrence Frank's plan to try different
combinations, including activating Vernon Macklin at some point, now
that Detroit is eliminated from postseason.

The Pistons still had a chance to
close the game but Stuckey, who shot 13 of 18 from the free-throw
line, missed three of his last six, all in the last 1:48.

Stuckey split a pair of free
throws with 16.1 seconds left to make it 85-83. When the Pistons
forced a five-second violation on the Bulls' next possession, Stuckey
split another pair with 14.2 left.

“Usually, I make them,”
Stuckey said. “They just didn't go in. So, on to the the next
one. It happens. It's part of life. Sometimes, you fail. You've
got to keep your head up and keep moving.”

Joakim Noah hurt the Pistons with
13 of his 17 rebounds on the offensive end, but the screen he set
just past midcourt to free Rose for the 3-pointer to make it 86-86
with 6.4 seconds left was just as big.

Ben Gordon hit that screen, and
Rose needed only two dribbles to jump just short of the 3-point line,
and well ahead of Greg Monroe's belated close-out.

“At that point, the right play,
of course, was to try to run him off the three,” Gordon said. “But
he already got a head of steam and got into his shot, so it was too
late by then.”

Stuckey missed a last-second shot
from the left elbow in regulation.

The Pistons took a one-point lead
a minute into overtime but the Bulls responded with a 9-2 run.

When you're 46-14 and looking down
on the rest of the NBA, that's what you do.

“The lesson to me,” Frank
said, “is look at what we're capable of doing. It's hard to do
this every single night – really hard. But that's got to be the
standard that we have to establish here. To me, we've shown that, at
different times, we're very, very capable of doing it. But it's got
to be the standard.”